I own absolutely nothing related to the Teen Titans. Nor do I own any of the songs or rights to the songs that I reference, may reference, or am even thinking of referencing in this story.

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The wild and windy night that the rain washed away
Has left a pool of tears crying for the day
Why leave me standing here, let me know the way
Many times I've been alone and many times I've cried
Anyway you'll never know the many ways I've tried
And still they lead back to the long winding road.

John Lennon, The Long and Winding Road

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Robin stared at the green teen before him. It was obvious that Beast Boy was not going to move, to even be remotely able to interact with him for a while. Leaving the changeling to his own torments, the boy wonder began to set up camp. Occasionally looking back towards the river, sparing a glance at his teammate, the Titan leader set up the tent and lit a fire a short way from the tent they shared. After a while, Beast Boy got up and, without a word, moved over to the fire and began to stare at the dancing flames.

For a moment, Robin looked at his compatriot. He still looked like a young boy. Yet, over the past weeks, he'd learned that the shape shifter was far more…experienced… in the ways of the world than he could ever imagined. That he'd lived a far different life than he could ever have dreamed.

And still, there was that fundamental mystery of who Beast Boy was. What had made him the man he was? What drove him, what motivated him? After a moment or so, the boy wonder left the fire and entered the tent. He lay down on his cot and stared at the roof of the tent, pondering.

"My God, what's happened to him? He's a wreck. What do I do? Bruce would say order him, make him face reality and get back to work."

"Is that what he needs?"

"Bruce would say yes. Work and more work."

"But he's suffering. REALLY suffering."

"Can he be trusted? Bruce didn't think so."

"Bruce isn't here. Bruce doesn't know him."

"Bruce knows EVERYTHING."

"No, he doesn't." With that, the eyeholes on Robin's mask opened wide. The realization that his mentor, The Batman, may not know everything was a shock. Oh, Robin had fought with him, had claimed that he didn't know everything. But that was bravado. Deep in his heart, Robin thought the Batman knew everything. Had the answers to every problem.

The realization that the Batman was NOT omniscient was a blow to his fundamental sense of reality. All children believe their parents are all knowing. To accept that they are not, which all children must do to grow into adults, is a shock. It's what they do afterwards that determines their future.

"So what do I do? How do I help him? I'm his leader, his team parent."

"Does he need a parent?"

"I'm the head of the Titans; he needs a leader."

"He needs a friend."

Xxxxxxx

Beast Boy sat staring in front of the fire. The numbness that had encompassed him when Robin had lit the fire was welcome. Anything to avoid the agony of his memories. The hypnotic effect that a fire had was pleasing to what was left of his mind.

And so, he continued to stare at the dancing flames.

His hyper keen senses continued to feed him information. Although he maintained his focus on the fire, he heard footsteps approach. The scent was Robin's; so he continued to stare. Not that he could, really, do much of anything else.

Before him, a hand appeared. There was no glove on it. A voice spoke, "I'm Dick Grayson."

Startled out of his catatonia, Beast Boy looked at the hand, then up to the face before him.

Into bright blue eyes.

Robin wasn't wearing his mask.

Beast Boy did the most natural thing. He extended his own hand and shook the one before him, "Garfield Logan". Dick Grayson sat near him by the fire, after a moment, he spoke.

"I take it this is where your folks died." Garfield nodded. "I still have trouble back in Gotham when we go to the Fairgrounds. And I've been there dozens of times." He paused. "Had no choice, cases ended up going through the Fairgrounds and we had to investigate them." Silence again. "I still see my folks falling from the trapeze."

Garfield looked questioning. "You mean Batman isn't your dad?"

Dick shook his head. "Mom and Dad were trapeze artists at the Haley Circus. Mobster killed them as part of a protection racket. We always worked without a net and so he cut the ropes on the trapeze so they fell. I was still on the ground cause my part of the act was later, so I saw them fall."

"Sorry," a pause, "How old were you?"

"Eight."

"I was six." He lapsed into silence again.

After a moment, Dick continued, "Anyway, I still remember it in every detail even now. I still can hear the thud they made when they hit." He paused. "I was really mad at Jake, one of the clowns, for keeping me back from them after they hit. I thought I could do something." Silence. "As it turns out, there was nothing I could do; they died within minutes from head trauma."

"You know, it's nothing like the movies or TV. You hear about people living after falling from buildings or planes, but the reality is, they die."

"But I still think every day, there must have been something I could have done."

Garfield nodded his head. "I know there was something I could've done. They sent me out of the boat, told me to fly away. I didn't understand what was going on, but after I saw the boat go over the falls, I knew."

"What could you have done?" Dick replied after a few moments. It wasn't with dismissal, or contempt. He really wanted to know. "Have you thought of something? You just said you had your powers, even as a little kid, was there something you could have changed to? I remember you saying that you couldn't turn into big animals until you were with the Patrol, but was there something then?"

The silence grew between the two as Dick waited for an answer. Gar didn't speak, didn't react. The question was one of true curiosity. Finally, Gar slowly shook his head no. Dick deflated a bit.

"I've never been able to think of anything either." A pause, "It eats at me, that feeling there must have been SOMETHING I could have done." He took a deep breath, "But there was nothing I could have done. Even Bruce has told me that there was nothing I could do."

"Bruce?"

"Bruce Wayne, Batman, the guy who took me in."

"Did he know you?"

"No, no he didn't." Dick paused, thinking. "You know, I never looked at it like that. It's always been a part of my life since then. He just took me in. Probably because his parents were killed by a crook, just like mine." Silence. "Still, we've seen dozens of other kids alone, abandoned. Why he took me in is still a mystery."

"So, this Bruce Wayne guy is Batman?"

Dick looked at his green friend with a bit of a stunned look. "You don't know him?"

Garfield shook his head. "Should I?"

"Well, he's one of the richest men in America, maybe the world."

"So, I don't hang out with rich guys. Other than what I see on TV, Lex Luthor, Bill Gates, uhhh..that guy on the TV show."

Dick looked at him for a moment, then shrugged. "Yeah, now that I think on it, unless you were part of that life, you wouldn't know it. Anyway Bruce took me in and started training me. He figured that would distract me from my folk's death. He's a big 'work through your problems' guy."

There was silence for a few moments, then Garfield spoke up. "That why you didn't have any problems taking the chip for Slade. You had inside info."

"Weellll, uh, not really." Dick looked a bit embarrassed. "You see, I, uh, hadn't talked to Bruce since I left and joined the titans. Not until a couple of weeks ago when I needed the diamonds."

"Didn't get along?"

Dick thought about it for a bit. "No, that wasn't really it. We did get along, well, at least as much as Bruce would let anybody get along with him. He's really pretty solitary." A pause, "Just got tired of his attitude, know everything, always right, always the best."

"Sounds like Mento. And he can read minds too."

"Bruce can't read minds, but he reads people so well you'd think he can read minds."

"When I left the Doom Patrol, I was SO sick of Mento and never meeting his standards. Never measuring up to what he wanted. And he is SO wrong about priorities. You can't watch people die," He chocked for a moment, then recovered himself, "You can't watch people die and be willing to let more die to get the mission done."

"Yeah, that's not going to work. I guess that's what the difference is between Mento and Bruce. Bruce won't let anyone die, he won't abandon anyone. Like I said, he saw his folks shot by a crook so he thinks like us. Maybe that's what you need in this business."

Garfield turned his head sideways in thought, "No, I don't think so. I hope not anyway. Steve DOES care, he wants to help people, stop monsters like the Brain from hurting others. He just has different priorities about what's needed to get the job done."

"That's a tough one," Dick replied, "How do you know the balance? Where's the line that tells you the mission is the priority?"

Gar looked at him in surprise, "You don't let people get hurt. Period. Doesn't matter if they're on your team, the bad guys or just a stranger. No one gets hurt." Then in a whisper, "And you don't abandon anyone, you don't leave them alone." The green teen began to cry again, more softly this time.

Dick Grayson waited, quietly, until his friend regained some control over his emotions. After a few moments, the crying stopped and Gar raised his head again, eyes still wet with tears. He rubbed underneath his nose to clear the runniness.

"You must think I'm a baby." There was a great deal of self-loathing in that statement.

The older teen visibly started. "God, no! How could you think that? I've seen what you do. Just in these last few weeks, I've learned, some, how you grew up. Hell, I'm amazed you're not in a psyc ward somewhere after all of what you've gone through. Just because we have different ways of coping with our pasts."

"And I still cry over my folks, once in a while, when it gets too much." He added in a voice just slightly above a whisper. Garfield looked startled.

"But…" he stopped, then tried again, "But, you've got everything together. You can do anything, you've…" He stopped again. In a whisper, "I don't get it."

"Everyone's got it together. Until they don't. Why should I be different?" The former acrobat was silent. Then he put his head down and put his hands through his hair, "I'm trying, GOD I'm trying to watch everything, know everything and be one step ahead. Keep everyone safe. Bruce can do it, why can't I?"

The two teens drifted into silence, watching the fire burn, embers drifting up into the clear sky to mingle with the stars. After a while, Dick got up and put some more wood on the fire. Then he sat down again.

"Anyway, after my folks were killed, Bruce took me in. He's not married, so he became my guardian. I guess at the time, he wasn't sure what to do with me, but he didn't want me dumped into the state foster system. So I went to live with him. Then spent the next six years training with him and becoming Robin."

"Did you ever get him?"

"Huh, who? Bruce?"

"No, the mobster who killed your folks."

"Oh. Yeah, we caught Zucco. I took the pictures that sent him to prison. He's serving a life term without parole."

"Did it help?"

Dick paused. It took a few moments. He let out a deep breath and answered. "No, not really. Mom and Dad are still dead. I was glad Zucco went to jail, but it didn't really solve anything. They're still dead. I still miss them. Every so often I pull out my pictures of them and look at them and remember that."

"You're lucky. I don't even have pictures of them. I don't have anything from my life before the Patrol. I'm not even sure I remember exactly what Mom and Dad looked like. It was so long ago and I was only six. Just a few memories of Dad in the lab, Mom singing." He fell silent. "I don't even know my birthday. I vaguely remember one birthday when I got a cake Mom made, but otherwise." He trailed off.

Weren't there any records of your birth?"

"I was born here in Africa, small village about a day or two north of here call Upper Lumumba. No real records."

"Must have been a surprise to everyone when you were born. Didn't they try to get you to a hospital, there should be records there?"

"Why would they get me to a hospital?" Gar was completely thrown off by the question.

"Well, ummm, you're green. Must have been a bit of a shock."

Garfield let out a bark, half laughter, half disgust. "I wasn't BORN green. I was perfectly normal. The green came later when I got sick. Don't know how old I was, got bit by a green monkey. I was in a lot of pain. Mom and Dad did something to cure me, but I turned green and got my powers. Steve was able to figure out that I had contracted Sakutia, a fatal disease passed on by animals. Mom and Dad did something that cured me, first time ever. But it turned me into this green freak."

"Your Dad worked in a lab?"

"Yeah, I didn't know it until I joined the Patrol, but Steve did some research to try to find out about my past. I didn't even know my folk's real names. Only Mom and Dad. And that my last name was Logan. He was able to piece together some of my background. My Mom and Dad were Marie and Mark Logan."

Dick sat up straight, eyes wide open. "HOLD IT! Your folks were Marie and Mark Logan, the biogeneticists?!"

Gar nodded.

Dick turned his head to the side, still wide-eyed, "Whoa!"

"So?" there was a tone of puzzlement in the green boy's voice.

"SO!? They're geniuses! Or they were, I guess. They were two of the most brilliant scientists alive. They were instrumental in decoding the Genome project. They…they.."

"They were mom and dad. They died. I don't even have a picture of them. I've been without them for most of my life." Gar fell silent again.

After a few moments, "We could just get a picture of them off the net. They're famous and there's got to…

Gar shouted out "NO! YOU DON'T GET IT! I DON'T HAVE A PICTURE OF US! OF ME AND THEM! OF THEM AS MOM AND DAD! I DON'T WANT A PICTURE OF TWO SCIENTISTS! I WANT A PICTURE OF MY MOM AND DAD!" He fell silent and bent his head down again, tears falling once more.

In a voice slightly above a whisper, he muttered, "I want my mom and dad."

The silence grew between them again. Finally, Dick spoke in a soft voice, "I'm sorry. I didn't get it. I do now. I'm sorry."

The silence resumed. Finally, Gar's silent weeping came to an end. Dick spoke up again.

"So, you were born in a small village nearby? I was born in a circus tent. Since we were always traveling from town to town, there were times we weren't anywhere near a hospital. During one of those times I was born. Supposedly one of the local docs helped with the delivery. At least that's what I was always told."

"My first memory was of the circus big top. Haley's was one of the last circuses to actually work under a traditional tent. When you're little, that tent is huge. That's what I remember. It was like you could fit the whole world under it." Dick lapsed into silence for a moment. "It was my whole world. I'd give anything, even give up being Robin, to be able to go back to it." And he let out a deep sigh.

In a low voice, Gar said, "I'm a little scared of circuses. Animals in cages, the freak show. When Star told us our future, I wasn't really scared of going bald, I was scared of being caged. That my life had gotten that bad that I was willing to hide in a cage at the freak show. Mom and Dad always told me I wasn't a freak, that I was special. I don't want Mom and Dad to be wrong. But that's what I'm really scared of. That I really am just a freak. That that's all you guys really think of me."

"No, we don't. At least I don't. I mean look at all of us. None of us could pass for normal."

"Come on," Gar answered with a little annoyance, "you can walk the streets unnoticed. You look normal."

Dick was quiet for a few moments. Then in a low voice he practically whispered, "That's the scariest thing. Everything I've seen and done. Everything I've been through from the Joker to going into hell. I can 'pass' for normal. But I don't know if I can BE normal anymore. All that's left is Robin. It's hard to be around 'normal' people. I'm always wondering what they're up to, what are they really planning. The paranoia becomes overwhelming."

"Not everyone is planning world domination, Dick. Most people just want to live. Day by day, year by year. Just get enough food to eat and a place to live. A way to cope with life." He fell silent. "Someone to love." Garfield fell silent again. "Living in Kibura, that kind of thing gets pounded into you day in and day out."

"I know. I KNOW! But I can't stop. Bruce has infected me with his paranoia. I can't stop being suspicious of everyone, everything."

"Even us?"

The question caught Dick off guard. He turned his head to the side and thought for a moment. Gar watched him with a questioning look, waiting for an answer.

"Nooo, no. I trust you guys." He said it slowly, as if he surprised himself with the realization. "Huh, guess Bruce's paranoia hasn't completely infected me." He said with a small chuckle. He saw the suppressed smile on his green friend's face and answered it with one of his own. "Don't get too cocky. It was a near thing with you. Between Bruce's warning me about you being in deep cover, you pulling that stunt with Moktar when he arrested me and you pulling out that broach at Kitengela's , I started to have some real doubts." He was smiling as he said this, so Gar didn't take it seriously. "Hey, where DID you get that broach anyway? And how do you know Antwerp diamond pricing? And how do you have a freaking CAYMAN BANK ACCOUNT?!"

"Batman said not to trust me?" Gar asked.

Dick nodded. "Yeah, he pointed out that you could be in deep cover. That this all might be part of an elaborate scam. He even brought up..." The teen paused; did he want to open that can of worms when Gar was at a low point?

Didn't matter, the former thief figured it out. "Terra." He took a deep breath. "Yeah, it happened to us once before, it could have happened again."

"I did argue with him about it. That you had saved my life numerous times. That I trusted you. Almost broke my hand hitting the monitor after he ended the call I was so angry."

"Thanks. Thanks for believing in me and sticking up for me."

The silence returned. After a few moments, Dick resumed speaking, "Don't think that gets you out of answering my questions. How the HELL do you have a Cayman bank account?"

"Doom Patrol."

"A few more details if you don't mind?"

Garfield let out a breath and looked up at the stars once more. "One of the things we were doing when tracking the Brain was cut out his source of money. He also dealt in stolen diamonds. Rita went undercover since she's the most normal one of us. I tagged along as a chameleon in her purse as backup just in case. The mission took a few months and I got to learn a bit about the way the underground diamond market operated. The Patrol also set up a series of Cayman accounts for operating funds in case of emergencies. That one was mine."

"So how come you're always broke? Use the Cayman account."

"ARE YOU NUTS? That's the Patrol's money. I can't use that for personal things. Mento would kill me."

"OK, ok. So you can only use that for operational funds. How about the broach?"

The green boy looked sheepish. In a very small voice he said, "Lifted it from Juja when he was wrestling me. Thought I might need some additional proof that I was still in the business and he always had decent stuff to sell."

Dick looked incredulously at his green friend. Then he began to laugh.

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Next – The Long and Winding Road – Continued

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Hi folks. It's been a while (not as long as the first time). As usual, many things have happened in my life and this had to take a back seat. There's still more to discuss sitting around the fire, but this started to get longer and longer and I thought I'd break it into two chapters.

My old friend, Force, has asked if now that Beast Boy and Robin are out of the city will the others join them? No. This is strictly a BB/Robin story of friendship.

Until next time my friends.